It’s Spring Break here. While many families have left town to head South (for the warmth), North (for skiing), or just about anywhere else to simply get away and explore somewhere new, most of my family is home. Our youngest needed to have her tonsils removed and Spring Break allows just enough time for her to recover without missing any school. On Friday she had surgery and since then we’ve been chilling around the house, watching movies and catching up on projects that have been waiting for our attention, while Evelyn chills on the couch or in her room.

Notice I said most of our family is home. Our eldest was lucky enough to accompany her grandmother on a trip to New Jersey to help watch her cousins. That leaves Katherine here to spend her break watching her sister get over tonsil surgery. Relaxing? Yes. Interesting? That depends on what we find to do besides watching an endless stream of movies.

Which led Katherine and I to create The Donut Challenge. We have heard of various donut shops and bakeries in the area, but somehow we’ve only managed to try one non-chain donut shop in all the years we lived here. It’s time to change that. We’re setting out to try donuts from seven shops in Naperville and the surrounding suburbs over the next seven days. Katherine devised a rating system that critiques each shop’s donuts on a variety of characteristics, from presentation, to texture, to flavor variety and more. And to make comparisons simpler, we plan to sample a simple glazed donut at each location (if available). By the end of Spring Break, hopefully we’ll have narrowed it down to our favorite, without putting on too many pounds.

Do you have a favorite donut shop? What makes it most appealing to you?

My bucket list includes meeting a handful of people I admire – comedians, authors, actors. And my goal in meeting them isn’t just to stand in a line for their autograph. I’d like to get even a few seconds to have a real conversation with them. Except given the chance, I don’t know what I’d say or ask. Which, I’m learning, needs to change. Because having a specific question could be the key to that meaningful conversation (and might introduce a surprising connection between you and that person). That’s what happened for a writer friend of mine, Sara Marchessault.

Before I share Sara’s story with you, you must know this about her: she is an avid journal-keeper. And not just someone who writes in a journal every day, but an intentional, creative journal writer who uses her skill and interest in journaling to help other people every day. Check out her website to learn more about Sara. Sign up for her newsletter for periodic journaling prompts sent to your inbox. Most of all: pick up a copy of her book, Beyond Pen & Paper: 33 Experiments in Journaling.

Now, here’s Sara’s bucket list story of how meeting someone famous intersected with her life’s passion:

Do you have a list in your head, or maybe written down somewhere, of people you would really like to meet?

When I was a kid I really wanted to meet Pope John Paul II. I think seeing his photo in catechism every week made me want to see what he would be like in person.

I have since modified my list to people who are much more accessible than the Pope. Elizabeth Gilbert is on my list. So is Ann Patchett.

In April 2015 I met Ann Patchett, right here in Tallahassee at the Word of South Festival.

And [in April 2016] I got to meet Elizabeth Gilbert. There we are in the photo [to the right].

I was giddy like a middle schooler in the 90s about to meet NKOTB.

She was in town as part of Opening Nights and when I was invited to the meet and greet reception before the event (thanks to my oldest friend, Betsy) I knew I was going to get to ask her the question I really wanted to ask.

It was great. There were maybe 25 people there and it was easy to get a few minutes to talk with her. And my burning question was….

Where did you get the idea for Tomorrow Morning’s name?

Tomorrow Morning is a character in her book The Signature of All Things.

And guess where she found his name?

In an old journal.

Let me say that again….in an old journal!

How freaking cool is that?

Here is a real life example of what can happen when one person engages in a regular practice of keeping a record of life. What was probably at least a hundred years later, inspiration is found in the pages and a voice from the past is heard anew.

She found the name in a journal. It was a name that a teacher had given to a boy who appeared at the school, wanting to learn. And she, Elizabeth Gilbert, loved it and wanted it to be in her book.

As Elizabeth Gilbert shared later that evening, “life meeting life.” But instead of face-to-face, it was through pages composed long ago.

You just never know what will happen with your writing.

What I do know is that the practice of actually writing is sacred.

It’s also therapeutic, healing, clarifying, and can guide you to find the meaning and purpose in your daily actions.

It can ground you to your life experience and help you be the leader in your life.

It can even become your legacy.

Sara Marchessault is a coach, writer, and mom who is on a mission to increase joy on the planet. Through the practice of self-reflection, we become aware of what brings us joy and what does not, and we make choices to move forward or stand still. Journal writing is a powerful reflection tool that can help any of us move forward, even in the darkest of times.

In the comments tell us, who have you always wanted to meet and what do you plan to ask them when you do?

Valentine’s Day yesterday was low key at my house. My husband cooked an amazing meal for me on Sunday. I gave him chocolate and each of my girls a little Valentine’s candy on the 14th.

Compared to the heart-themed-breakfast, love-notes-in-lunch-boxes fusses many of my fellow moms made, it doesn’t sound much like a bucket list celebration, does it?

There’s a reason for that.

Over-the-top celebrations aren’t sustainable for me. And I would argue they aren’t healthy or sustainable for most. They raise the bar and set expectations such that we’re often scrambling to find ways to make the next event memorable, to wow our kids or spouse or friends or social media followers with our creativity and pizzazz, to outdo ourselves. And in the process we cheapen everyday life and rob our kids of anticipation.

Going big has become such a way of life in our culture that I suspect we’re losing the ability to appreciate the ordinary. Our sense of perspective has been skewed by this desire for every milestone or occasion to be bright and amazing. When Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day and Easter share the same level of riotous hype in a household, how do kids learn which of those days is most significant?

When teenage girls become accustomed to up-do’s and manicures and professional makeup for homecoming dances, preceded by an elaborate “ask” by their date, then prom must include limousines and multi-hundred-dollar dresses and fancy “after parties.” But what’s left for the day they become engaged? And how can they help but expect the type of wedding that requires an exorbitant price tag when a mere high school dance merited so many frivolous expenses?

We have become so focused on giving our kids everything now, that we are leaving nothing for later. What will your children’s bucket lists look like when they reach their 20s and their 30s? When they are your age, what will they be hoping to do? How will they not be bored in retirement having done it all already?

More importantly, what do your kids bucket lists look like right now? In the wake of the hype and the busyness and the constant need to go big and achieve much, I’m hearing from kids how they just want a day to hang out at home and do nothing. They want a break from it all. Are you brave enough to give it to them? Or do you fear making them feel “left out” by not giving them every over-the-top experience you think their peers are getting?

Break the cycle. Dare to be the parent who invites their kids to enjoy the ordinary and leaves some bucket list experiences for the future. I know a lot of other moms who would appreciate it. And I’m pretty sure in the long run, your kids will too.

Feeling exhausted from trying to match the over-the-top expectations prevalent among parents? Are you still eager to give your kids meaningful experiences that bring your family closer? I can teach you how. Check out my book Family Bucket Lists, or take my online course, Bonding Through Bucket Lists.

Your teen loves Harry Potter. A trip to Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter would make her year. But you’re frugal. How do you reconcile the two? How do you create a bucket list experience of it, without breaking the bank?

The secret is knowing where to splurge and how to find deals. I’m going to share with you how earlier this month I managed to take four people on a five-night trip to Florida from Chicago that included airfare, hotel and 4-day Park-to-Park tickets for Universal Studios Orlando for just over $2,000, while still managing to wow everyone in the family.

There are multiple methods for saving on each aspect of the trip. The details I’m sharing here offer just one example of how it can be done. What I want to key in on is how saving on some aspects of our trip gave us room in our budget to splurge on others (although “splurging” didn’t always involve money – but I’ll get to that later).

Here’s how it worked for us:

AIRFARE: 4 economy round-trip tickets from O’Hare International (ORD) to Orlando International (MCO) on American Airlines

COST: $36.39, plus 56,673 Citi Thank You Points

HOW I DID IT: Early in 2016 I applied for a Citi Thank You Premier card. The card came with a bonus offer of 50,000 points (now 30,000) after spending $3,000 on the card within 3 months. It earns 3 points per dollar on travel (airfare, gas, tolls, etc.) and 2x points on dining & entertainment. After earning the bonus I continued to use the card primarily for gas purchases. When it came time to book our flights, I looked for Economy MileageSAAver award seats on American Airlines using airline miles I have in my AAdvantage account. This would have cost me 25,000 miles plus $11.20 each, RT. But I couldn’t find anything available for four people during the weeks I wanted to go. Then I remembered my Thank You Points. I did a search for award tickets again, this time using the Citi Travel Center. That’s where I found the RT tix for 56,673 points and $36.39 (versus 100,000 miles and $44.80). SOLD!

I would call that an intermediate/advanced miles & points booking. Although award seat availability can be hard to find on American itself, you may have success doing a straightforward booking with miles there or with a different airline (especially Southwest, where you can book any available seat using miles). If you can use airline miles or credit card points (like Citi Thank You or Chase Ultimate Rewards*), your travel costs will drop dramatically. You don’t have to be a frequent flyer to accumulate those miles either, as I just demonstrated above.

HOW I DID IT: I’m an IHG (Intercontinental Hotels Group) Rewards Club member. I have points I could have used, but not quite enough for all 3 nights. Or I could have used my annual free night (from having a Chase IHG Visa). But at $95.09/night, the IHG Rewards Club rate was low enough that I chose to book with cash and save my points and free nights for another occasion.

HOW I DID IT: As with Holiday Inn Express in Orlando, I booked through the IHG Rewards Club. This time I used a combination of cash and points (which is handy when you want to stretch your points stash). The regular points rate was 15,000 points, so effectively $59.50 bought me the additional 5,000 points I needed. Again, this was a good enough deal for me and allowed me to hang on to my free night for future use.

Note: I earn IHG points by using the IHG Visa. You can earn bonus points when you first apply for the card and spend $1,000 in three months (as of Jan. 2017 the bonus is 60,000 points, which would get you up to four free nights at one of many of IHG’s hotels). IHG hotels happen to fit our needs well, so this is a card I’m happy to pay for, especially with a free night certificate at your card anniversary. The $49 fee (waived the first year) is worth it!

HOW I DID IT: First of all, you have to know that this felt like a splurge! We had a room on the 8th floor (Club Lounge was on the 9th), with a partial view of the Gulf and beach. In other words, this was what Sheraton calls a “Deluxe” room. I had booked a “Classic” room, but I also let the hotel know that this was a special visit for us as it was our girls’ first time on the Gulf and I wanted to make it memorable for them. If there was a room available, would the hotel consider giving us a nice view. My request paid off and it had the exact effect I was hoping for. We were all wowed – not just by the room and the view, but by the hotel and its location in general. The pool area was beautiful and tropical feeling, the beach pristine and inviting. If only it hadn’t been a high of 50 degrees the day we were there! Our girls still enjoyed finding seashells on the beach and we all spent some time relaxing in the hot tub.

The other reason this felt like a splurge is that SPG points are harder to earn. I applied for the SPG Amex card in 2015 and received 30,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in 3 months. So this one night cost a third of that bonus. In my book though, those points were totally worth that free night! The cash value if we had paid for that room would have been $483. The enjoyment we got from it? Priceless!

PARK TICKETS, FOOD & INCIDENTALS: $1,648

HOW I DID IT: Park tickets is one area where I don’t have many tricks to share with you, other than comparing prices between Universal and Undercover Tourist. Even so, the cost of park tickets doesn’t vary much (although if you know you’re going to visit Universal Studios, don’t wait to buy tickets as they occasionally implement price increases. It ended up costing us about $80 more through Undercover Tourist when I finally bought them than when I first priced them out – not a big deal, but every penny counts). That’s why it’s a good idea to maximize your savings on travel & accommodations.

If you’re not using points for the hotel and you belong to a warehouse club, then it’s definitely worth looking at their packages. We could have saved $150 on the cost of hotel and park tickets combined if we had thought to look at Costco’s offers before booking the non-refundable rate we got at the hotel.

RENTAL CAR: If you’re only visiting the theme parks, then you probably don’t need a rental car. Just be warned that the shuttles that run from hotels outside Universal Studios Resort have a limited schedule and limited seats. Don’t count on being able to hop on at any time. That said, we were comfortable walking from the Holiday Inn Express to the park. It was only about 25 minutes and for us it was good to be outside in the nice Florida weather (having left wintry Chicago the day before).

We did rent a car for our trip because we wanted to spend some time over on the Gulf Coast. I ended up finding the best deal through Costco. Which is to say, take a look at all the options you have for booking a rental car. AAA, warehouse clubs and even some auto insurance networks offer discounts on car rentals.

FOOD: There are ways to save on food without buying groceries and packing sack lunches (which Universal Studios discourages). We did bring a handful of snacks along on our trip, a few of which we brought to the parks each day. That helped when we wanted a quick bite and didn’t want to blow a ton of cash on theme park snacks. I also made sure we stayed at a hotel with free breakfast. Yes, I know free hotel breakfasts often aren’t that great. But yogurt and fruit is about the same anywhere, if you’re okay with that. Cereal too. In our case the vacation was about the parks, not the food.

We also kept in mind portion sizes when ordering in restaurants. Even on site at Universal, the portions were large. For the most part, we would split meals, which always seemed to be enough to fill us. On occasion the girls or I would get soup or salad, which was lighter and less expensive. Lunch we ate at the parks because it was more convenient. And then usually we ate dinner at an outside restaurant. Having Chick-Fil-A Cow Calendar cards came in handy for Mike & I to save money on one meal (although the girls forgot theirs). I think also if I had planned ahead, I would have picked up a few chain restaurant gift cards from our Discover Cash Back rewards account. That would have cut the cost of dining when we weren’t in the parks.

We did occasionally splurge on dining though (remember, I’m all about splurging strategically). Trying Butterbeer in Diagon Alley and eating at The Leaky Cauldron were amazing experiences that we didn’t mind spending more on. And a seafood dinner in Tampa was another worthwhile splurge.

INCIDENTALS: I want to point out one splurge in this area. In a previous post I go into more detail about this, but I felt I would be remiss not to include a mention here as well: we bought our daughters each an interactive wand at Universal Studios Wizarding World. At $50 each, they were beyond our usual budget. So instead we made them part of our girls’ Christmas gifts (their dad presented them with bow-topped dowel rods on Christmas morning, with the promise of the real thing on our trip). This splurge, more than any other, made the trip for our girls. Again, read my previous post to learn more about that.

Phew! I know that’s a lot of information, but I thought it valuable to share with you details about how it’s possible to keep your budget under control while making an epic trip like Universal Studios that’s memorable for everyone.

Feel free to share your own tips for saving on a theme park trip in the comments below. It’s ideas like these that make it possible for families to take their own family bucket list trip sooner.

*While I don’t participate in affiliate programs, this is a personal referral link. This means I earn points when you sign up. I only include this because I highly value the Chase Sapphire Program and heartily recommend it to anyone who asks about traveling using miles and points.

What a month it has been! I had every intention of participating in The Goal List’s 31 Days of Everyday Adventure (you can read more about it here and here). And indeed, I looked at the list of small things to do every week and noted what I would do. Each week I accomplished one thing. But there were also a number of not-so-everyday adventures in our family that kept me from being able to catalog those adventures here. The month is not over though. I thought I would give a recap of what I did now, in hopes that you’ll be inspired to continue with your own everyday adventures in December (and beyond). And be sure to check out other 31 Days of Adventure Posts on McVagabonds and Life’s Simple Adventures.

Week 1 – Write a Gratitude List

I posted about this at the beginning of the month. I have to say that it helped me to keep a thankful frame of mind all the way into Thanksgiving week. I think it could make a good activity to start each month with a gratitude list.

Week 2 – Compliment Someone You Don’t Know

I always feel awkward handing out compliments to strangers. Like what if they think I’m being nosey or too personal? But most of the time I don’t let that stop me, simply because I know how good I feel when someone I don’t know notices something they like about me. In this instance, I was out shopping and saw a woman in a swingy long coat that had a very glamorous flow to it. It made her look confident and classy, but at the same time approachable. So when she passed me by I mentioned that the coat was very becoming on her. She smiled and thanked me and then flowed on her way. Maybe she didn’t need my admiration. Then again, I do think for us women it helps to be reminded that we should wear things that make us feel good. Because life is too short to always go out looking and feeling dumpy.

Week 3 – Go to bed early today, so you can enjoy tomorrow more.

I tend to get distracted with reading at bedtime, either a good book (I’m currently devouring my daughter’s copy of Cinder – we met the author this month, which of course is an out-of-the-ordinary adventure, not the everyday sort) or mindless Internet drivel. This often means I turn out the light later than I intended. But I did get to bed by 9:30pm one night. That’s early. And it felt like an indulgence. The next morning I asked myself why I don’t do that more often. I indulge in watching Netflix while I fold laundry (if you’re a Downton Abbey fan, you should check out The Crown). Why not indulge in calling it a night earlier at least once a week?

Week 4 – Meet Someone New and Strike Up a Conversation

This one feels a little bit like cheating. We were invited for dinner at a friends’ house along with three other families this past weekend. I had met two of the women before, but didn’t really know them. So it was an entire evening of conversation with new people. None of them were American born, so it made things even more interesting – learning about their countries of origin and what brought them to the United States.

Week 5 – Give Away Something You Own to Someone Who Will Appreciate It

I hadn’t set out to accomplish this adventure goal intentionally, but when the opportunity presented itself last night in my crawl space, I had to seize it. I can’t divulge what the item is, but while I was putting away bins from Christmas decorations, I came across a box in the crawl that happened to contain something on a family member’s Christmas wish list. It’s brand new and was given to us at a special event last year. We had tucked it away in the crawl, unopened, for the exact reason that we knew eventually someone else would appreciate it more than we did. And I had completely forgotten about it until I opened the box.

Have you participated in the 31 Days of Everyday Adventure Challenge? If not, what are you waiting for? Pick one of the adventures and give it a go. Shelly did a great job making the challenges doable and interesting. And many of them involve other individuals, which means you have the opportunity to impact someone else’s life for the better in the process. Which is what this season of year is about – bringing light and joy to others.

Families today struggle for quality time together. I help them clarify their priorities into a list that motivates and energizes them to do authentically meaningful things together. Families who have created a family bucket list enjoy better family time, experience stronger relationships and live less stressed lives.

I'm a parenting journalist and mom of three who knows what it's like trying to keep a household running and still find quality time with the husband and kids. Family bucket lists are key. I hope you'll stick around to learn how.